The contribution of teachers is significant in the empowerment of the school system in our country. It is essential to engage trained human resource in all schools if we are to strengthen the teaching learning process. Therefore the government has drawn its special attention towards all requirements of teachers such as recruiting teachers to the schools, training, national policy on teacher transfers, grading and promotions of the teachers, teacher salaries and welfare services.

Accordingly, with the objective of filling all teacher vacancies in schools by the end of year 2017, in addition to the annual recruitments of the diploma holders of the National Colleges of Education, the gazette notification has already been issued to recruit 1093 graduates as teachers. Further, the measures have been already taken to issue the gazette notification to recruit 1177 graduates as primary teachers who had been directly appointed to the service of the Ministry of Education under the graduate training scheme. The cabinet approval has already taken to absorb to the teacher service the volunteer teachers and the teachers who served on contract basis in the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

In addition to this, the proposal to appoint 3482 retired teachers for Tamil medium Science, Mathematics, English, Information Technology and other core subjects for which the trained teachers are not available, to the estate schools and national schools on contract basis has already been submitted for cabinet approval. Another cabinet paper has also been submitted for approval to establish a separate service for the In-Service Advisers’ service.

Further the details of the available teacher vacancies have already called from the provinces as an initial step to recruit the diploma holders and Advanced Level qualified people after the relevant trainings in order to fill the non-graduate teacher vacancies in provincial council schools. The objective of all these programs is to fill all the teacher vacancies hundred per cent in all schools in the country and to establish a strong active teacher service in the country minimizing the issues in the teacher service.